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3 inspiring gems from Majorel’s Lotfi Kabbaj

In the second episode of Calling Corporates, we spoke with Lotfi Kabbaj, VP Finance Transformation at Majorel, about how he is leveraging tech and taking the finance function at Majorel to the next level.

Majorel brings together Bertelsmann and Saham Group’s worldwide customer experience businesses into a new global leader with activities in 31 countries and employing over 60,000 people. Lotfi is charged with bringing Majorel’s finance function to the next level. As part of this transformation, he has created “The Reporting Factory” – a first shared services platform based on OneStream technology, used for financial and specialist reporting and client profitability analysis, managed by a mix of onshore and offshore staff.

During our conversation, Lotfi revealed 3 inspiring gems.

1. He listens to his intuition with great success

During the interview, Lotfi talked about the key role listening to his intuition has played in his work.

In fact, the vision for The Reporting Factory began with listening to, and building upon, an intuition. Lotfi’s starting point for this transformative project was his firm belief that Majorel needed one finance function and the right agility. He talked about having a strong intuition about the project, which he then used as a basis for his ideas. He then took the combination of his belief, intuition and ideas and turned this equation into an initiative – for which he successfully got support from top management and built a great team around him to implement.

 

2. He uses holistic selection criteria

When choosing external partner Satriun Inplenion*, Lotfi used a holistic selection criteria spanning technical, cultural and values based considerations.

At the time of interview, Majorel’s annual revenue was around 1.4 billion. Suffice to say, they can choose to partner with whomever they like. When choosing an external partner for The Reporting Factory project, Lotfi took a holistic approach. In addition to the technical considerations and practical requirements, he based his choice on cultural and values based considerations – including the need for a global approach and a shared passion for working with deep commitment.

* Satriun and Inplenion International have created a joint venture in France, in 2020, to join forces and become a local leader in the implementation of OneStream’s Corporate Performance Management solution

 

3. He is a firm believer in agility – start small and scale fast

The Reporting Factory is a pioneering project. He is breaking new ground day in day out. And a key ingredient of achieving this success is true agility. “Don’t wait for the perfect result. Start small and then scale fast,” Lotfi advises.

And that’s exactly how this project is growing and already achieving some early wins.

Lotfi made time to speak with us just weeks out from his first big “go live” for the year. It will be exciting to see where the Marjorel finance function has landed this time next year.

 

Want to hear the whole conversation?

Listen to our Calling Corporates podcast! Every couple of weeks we upload new interviews.

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